Tag Archives: Search engine Optimization

From time to time we are asked what we do monthly to check on a web sites SEO status. So, instead of boring you with a narrative I thought we would just post some of the instructions I give to our SEO people. It’s in no way completely inclusive, but if you want to D.I.Y this is a good guide.

On Site:Home Page and Main keyword page.

- Meta Tags: The Title and Description

Does it contain the keyword(s))

Does one of the two contain a local intent keyword if a local company.

Find the meta tags by right clicking on a blank part of the page. Click on “page source” A new page will open.

- Does the home page have a G+ icon that goes to the business G+ profile?

Mention that when the Business profile is complete, they should add the G+ badge to their home page. Instructions are in the G+ business page information.

- Does the home page have at least one out bound (external Link) to a high authority site? Example: Check our B.B.B. ratings and a link to their B.B.B. page

- Does the site have good quality content?

Internal pages should be added from time to time, and a page from the main navigation should have at least 700 + words. The information should be useful and well written.

- Does the site have a Blog? If yes, is there new valuable content on the blog? Are blog titles used that will be easy for the search engines to identify what the blog post is about. Are they using a SEO plug in for a word press blog.

- No blog? Add one. They can pay content writers to produce blogs. (average cost $70 to $129.00) or write their own.

Site Structure: Is the navigation clear and using a silo system for main search topics ?

Site Load Time:Does the site load in an acceptable time. Check GWT for speed test.

NAP (Name, Address, Phone)

Does the site clearly display the local businesses Name address and phone number on the homepage and contact form. Suggest they use http://schema.org mark up for their address. Their web master can do this very quickly.

If its a local company are they using a local number? Add one if they are using a n 800 number.

Google Web Master: Is there a current site map on G.A.?

Reputation Management:

Search for business name on Google.

Check all first page results for any positive or negative reviews.

Here’s what you find under My One Call LLC

What ever review sites show up (Google, Yelp, Youtube) you should encourage the web owner to ask for more positive reviews on those sites and make them aware of any non positive mentions or reviews.

MOZ Rankings: Go to MOZ.com and log in.

Run an open explorer report on the main URL. Note and communicate the Page Authority, and Number of links. Down load a monthly back link report.

Competitive assessment: Search for their main keyword and city (if Local) Note the top ranked sites. Make a note of the top three. (do not include directories)

Go to moz.com open Site Explorer. Add top three competitors to “compare link Metrics ”Copy report to client.

Run Open Site Explorer for the top three sites. Look for linking opportunities.

I know, SEO is a very difficult to understand these days… but we all must conceed there is “something” that determines where Google and other search engines place a result from a search query. Understanding how that works (or at least some of how that works) is what a good search engine optimization company does.

The process of understanding that is to watch carefully how certain pages move up and down in the search engine results for certain specific keywords. And when you see positive movement, figuring out what may have caused it. This is where it gets really tricky, especially for an SEO who is actively working on marketing a clients website, because in my humble opinion, Google does some very interested things concerning “timing” of search rankings.

The short version is, what you see happening today may only be temporary, and based on Google wanting you to think what you did in the last few weeks, or month may have been the cause of the change, when, the truth is, they’re just waiting to see if you react to a positive change by doing more of what you did, and then seeing that you do, they ZAP your silly little SEO process and drop your rankings like a bowling pin going down for a 7-2 spare pick up.

It’s the typical “Google is smarter than you syndrum”. Look,I am pretty sure they only hire people with an IQ higher than 195, and thats for part time positions. You are NOT going to outsmart them… really. Go ahead.. try.

So what do you do? Well, doing nothing with a pages SEO is a great process. You see , once you get past the basic’s of some good quality promotion of a site, and making sure the site has decent if not great on page optimization, the rest falls into the hands of the audience.

The people who search will have a much larger impact on your pages ranking than any backlinking or SEO wizardry you may do.

Here is my example. This page is ranked very highly in about 7 different city searches for the major keyword. In other words, if I set my browser to Denver, or one of the major suburbs around denver, and type in the keyword, with no location intent (a city or zip) this page is in the top 2. That by itself doesn’t mean much, but it also brings in a huge amount of the right traffic for the client. This year they are getting about two proposals a month from the page, with an average value of 50K.

There aren’t a bunch of backlinks to the page. We haven’t done any SEO to the page except the concept, and the onsite work… meaning just the basics.. title tags and such. So why does this page rank so well? People LOVE it! The click through rate is huge, and the time on page is excellent.

This page is so popular that I know of at least two other competitors to the company that use it to show their prospects what a basement finish might cost. Now thats a great testimonial.

So what’s the most important element to SEO? Popularity of the page you build. (past the basics,. aAnd, isn’t that exactly the way it should be? I told you those Google people were smart.

Local SEO. The One Fix to Jump Start Your Rankings. (updated February, 2015)

A few months ago a new prospect who has been using several different SEO type companies asked me why their site still couldn’t be found online. This is a good question as they have spent thousands of dollars, in a slow and painful trickle, to SEO and Internet marketing people via a $350.00 monthly payment over several years. (That’s like 8K total)

So, I like any professional give the standard SEO guy answer, let me look at it. The first tactic I use to figure out what is going wrong in a Local Business ranking is to see where they are currently listing online and what those listings have in them. Specifically do the sites they are currently listed on have the correct information on the company’s name, address, phone number, and categories.

In this case the potential client had a real mess going on.

One of his “SEO” companies had built two different web sites with two different URLs, both with different phone numbers (for tracking I assume) and their correct company name and physical address. They had also listed these sites with the wrong information in many of the standard local directories everyone uses, including Google of course.

They also had a HomeAdvisor listing with a tracking number, and…. they even had several directories where someone years ago had listed their home phone number and address before they had a nice big office in a nice big office building.

All of this created a very confused Google.

Google loves consistent information about your company. They are robots… they have a mission, and the first mission is to collect information on your business name, address, phone and URL. If they see different versions, they completely lose their confidence, and push your website rankings way down, so they don’t have to deal with it. I am not joking. These robots are cowards.

The reality was they didn’t need SEO, they needed an Internet Janitor to clean up a horrible listings mess. And this is where so many SEO’s and businesses get it all wrong, from the very beginning. They start with checking back link reports. Backlink reports will not show you the inconsistent listing issue. You must search like a human (hey… that sounds like a song title… “Search like a human”), anyway. Go to Google and type in the Company name. Now go to every site that shows up for that company and see if it has the right Name, Phone, Address and URL.

I have seen rankings plummet when a business uses DEX advertising with a call tracking number. Dex will publish the company name, address and the tracking number, all over local directors to encourage salespeople to call the client, so DEX can make a dollar of two on the call.

It all comes down to this.

A confused search engine is a big problem. And when Google see’s different information for the same company, they don’t call you and ask, because they are robots, they just bury your rankings because robots have no feelings.

In many cases, the fastest way to get your sites rankings up is to fix any old, incorrect, or in any way inconsistent listings that exist online today. Most businesses can do this on their own by contacting each site that needs to be corrected. In some cases, it’s really hard, so if you can clean up most of them, you probably have done enough to fix the problem. Or, you can hire an Internet janitorial firm (like us) and we will do it for you. The main thing is Don’t continue to pay for SEO until this is completed. You may be surprised to see your site appearing on the first page for your important services after a good clean up.

Not sure if this is your issue on rankings? See that click to make an appointment link on the top of the page,it goes directly to my inbox. Feel free to use it, and I can tell you in 5 minutes if you have issues.

We all know SEO is hard work, and lot’s of research, but as in anything, some good luck is always welcome. Here are the top 13 tatctics to attract good luck for your SEO.

1.) Type in your search term every hour, click on your listing, stay on home page AT LEAST 45 seconds. Click onto another page. Stay there as you hold your breath to the count of 10.

2.) Do this again from another IP address, but stick your tongue out as you hold your breath.

3.) Go to any of the Google blogs, and make HIGHLY positive comments about them. But be sincere, like you can tell them how great their Google Places service team is. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/

Image via CrunchBase

4.) Go to Rand Fishkin’s wife’s blog and make a comment about how smart her husband is. http://www.everywhereist.com/ . Buy the way, it’s a great blog!

5.) Never, ever mention SEO in any article or published piece that in any way can be associated with you or a client.

6.) State on your site you do not list clients because you don’t want Google to know who they are.

7.) Each week mention how sexy your wife or girlfriend thinks Matt Cutts is. Post a picture of her on your blog. If need be, post a picture of a model and say its your girlfriend or wife. You can extra points if you mention it here. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

8.) Always use broad match in your Adwords… and spend too much.

9.) Do a blog weekly on how great Google Plus is. Extra credit if you bash facebook or microsoft. (I find that pretty easy to do).

10.) Just tell people they can find your site by Googling you or your company name, because, yes, you are that good. ( You might remind them to add the city after the name just in case)

11.) Carry a lucky mouse foot around in your pocket with your keyword and site written on it.

Computer mouse (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

12.) Brag about your new Chromebook on your Facebook page and refer them to the post you made about it on your Google + page.

13.) Hire someone from fiverr to search on google just like this:
Your Company name | Popular in your keyword 100 times a day.

Using all of these on a consistent basis will do wonders for your rankings. Do you have any you can add?

These are just some that work for us.. What good luck tactics have you found work?

One of the largest mistakes you can make when you are starting your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) process is skipping identification of your most likely prospects.

Almost all SEO’s will start with a Keyword analysis, but far to many don’t think about where these prospects can be found. As a easy example, if you are selling Insurance and do nothing but a key word analysis, you may have a good idea of what your best prospects will type into the search box, but you are still a long way away from providing a high ROI laser targeted SEO program.

When we provide a sales crystal ball program to a client, it starts with the following pages. By reading this you can get a much better idea of how to create a laser targeted SEO campaign. If you think of that Insurance program I mentioned above, why would you not want to know specifically the locations, incomes, and why customers buy the insurance before you start.

Here is a good way to start developing a laser targeted profile. It’s generic, and can be customize to SEO or any marketing and sales programs.

Overview of Commonalities

Identification and the analysis of what traits your best customers have in common is the foundation of developing a laser targeted list of new prospects. Without this information companies will waste both time and money marketing and selling to prospects who are unlikely to buy from them, and if sold may become a low quality customer.

With a laser targeted list provided through the Crystal Ball process your sales and marketing will be far more productive. You will spend your time and money attracting better clients while maintaining your current marketing budget. The combination of spending targeted dollars on better prospects will lead to your business selling faster and more in a shorter period of time.

Your Crystal Ball program is designed to fine tune and pinpoint three areas that are the basis for any marketing campaign.

———–> Laser targeted List

———–> Compelling message

———–> Reach tactics

In our process, we have identified the commonalities that are shared between your best customers. We then apply our years of experience in business analysis and marketing to establish not only mathematically what the highest scores are in each trait, but also to assess the value of that trait for your marketing. A simple high percentage of total score in a trait does not in and by itself mean that trait has high value.

As an example, many Crystal Ball clients will score high in their best clients utilization of social media. But, even though there may be a very high percentage of your best clients using Social Media to promote their services, it won’t cause a high overall score based on the fact that we would expect the normal percentage in this area to be around 70%. So in fact, although there is a very high percentage as a total of your best customers, the percentage is normal, and does not produce a high score unless other unique attributes can be assigned to this trait.

To determine the overall scores on a trait we look at three areas.

1.) Is the number of customers to the total high. For example, if 17 of 20 customers have the same trait, that would be a 8.5 baseline score. That by itself is a very high score.
2.) Is it unusual to see this percentage in this trait considering your industry. Using the social media example above the answer would be no, and the score is adjusted to represent that depending on the exact percentage score and the normalcy of this trait percentage.
3.) And then, how pertinent is it to the identification of your laser targeted list. During the analysis we may find several areas that have a high percentage of total, and are unusually, but in fact, based on years of experience we know that this particular trait is not worth focusing on.

As you can see, with some solid research, and analytically assessments you can find a Gold mine of information that will help you as a business or an SEO as a vendor provide a true laser targeted list of prospects.

A fellow SEO just noticed some major keywords are showing up on the first page of Google. I wonder if you use a hashtags on your tweets for your company or a local brand (company name) of it would do the same thing?

Here are two quick examples of Twitter Hashtags showing up from searches in Denver: Searched : Earthquake

Here is a search for Denver

I think I will start Tweeting with the Company as a hashtag and see what happens. I will use #Myonecall.

I am going against the general concord in SEO circles this year (what a shock right?) on what will work for SEO firms in 2013, and make a big statement. Links matter more than ever, and are in fact (after your on site work) the absolute most important aspect to any successful SEO program.

There is a ton of content marketing, and social signal pundits in SEO since Panda and Penguin marched into town burning and destroying all search rankings developed with sophomoric and thoughtless tactics, that will tell you the only path to high Internet traffic is through a massive content marketing strategy. The mass hysteria that followed has been epic.

I have read a great volume of blogs’ and posts on “how to “implement SEO now that every thing has changed. The truth is, very few “things” have changed, and authors are simple feeding a hungry and worried Internet Marketeering community.

I recently posted on a very popular blog (about local SEO issues) that the loss of keyword information from Google was not a really big deal for local services. I mean, if you need a keyword tool to tell you how people find a local Plumber, you may want to get another gig. SEO is not for you in 2013. Most will use the word Plumber. Maybe add service, company, a city, I mean there just are not all that many combo’s to figure out. In my experience, what is important in local internet visibility is not the combination of keywords a prospect uses, but how they use those combinations in search. Most SEO firms won’t even report (because there is no automated tool to do so) how a site ranks in important local zip codes with no local intent term used. And this is becoming the MAJOR search type for local services.

This race to content now being promoted as the SEO tactic de jour may be exactly what we think it is when it comes to non local sites. For local sites, and local SEO, which is where the vast majority of us plow the ground, it is in many cases complete phooey. Not that great content is phooey, just that this obsession with great content as the number one all in one SEO device is phooey. Google wants a site to communicate the information a person goes to that site for (I am guessing). A local plumber doesn’t need to be the Robert Frost of the copper pipe crowd, to rank well. They just need to have a well designed 4 or 5 page site, giving people what they want to read and see when they get there.

Example: In the last 4 months we have ranked a site with one page of actually content (two pages total) for a local intent keyword, by adding a few local back links, using an emd, and ummm that was it. Does it have much competition? Yes, some. Would it ever have a chance of ranking on a national search? No. And that’s the point; Local SEO is to National SEO what Physics is to the M theory. They both deal with universe in completely different ways.

So for Local SEO in 2013:

Backlinks to your site will continue to be the number one (off site) ranking factor.

On Site SEO will continue to be important.

That’s it.

PS A backlink doesn’t mean a listing on a horrible directory that no one ever visits. It means a mention of your site on a site that real people who might be interested in your service visit, and may actually click through to your site based on that visit. It may also mean an advertisement on a highly promoted site, or a mention on a popular face book or linked in page. This hasn’t change in the last 2 years. Spammy directories and link wheels where never good for SEO. If you were using those and keyword stuffing and all of that, then I will agree with you, your SEO has changed a lot.

Blogging is a buzz word in the small and medium business community. Almost every client we talk with (or potential client) wants to know how to do a blog because they have “heard” it will help their search engine rankings. This falls into the tradition of small business owners being about 8 years behind on new marketing tactics. That’s not a criticism, it’s a reality. Most small business owners don’t have the hours in a day needed to stay on top of anything besides what they do.

The Bad News. Although there is clearly some truth left in that assumption that a blog will help your sites rankings, but, and it’s a big but, if you are to see an increase in your sites popularity based on a blog, it must have valuable content that other sites and social media will pick up on and mention. If your blog is just another 700 + words of regurgitated news, facts, rumors, or opinion already published or blogged about on the Internet by 100 or 1000 other sites your chances of a web master or influential social media picking up on the blog are very low. And if your Blog isn’t mentioned on other web sites, it gets no help in rankings.

Additional Value of a Blog bedside’s Rankings. Now, if your blog gives your prospective clients or current customers some unique insight into your business or industry, even if they are not going to mention it or link to it, it’s still of value, just not for your search engine visibility. It will help you become more of a trusted source for whatever it is you do.

Blog Machine (Photo credit: digitalrob70)

Internet Marketers Are Blog Obsessed. That’s a problem, because many (and I mean many) Internet Marketers have had some success with getting their blog or content mentioned and linked to, (and all that SEO stuff), by writing a blog,. They write blogs about blogs that are based on another blog in the hopes that someone they don’t know, and who is trying to get followers on twitter will retweet their content to an audience that has little or no interest in what they are saying, and have already seen the information 5 times in other higher authority blogs or sites.

The reason they have any success is it’s far more likely to get Internet Marketing content linked or mentioned on the INTERNET because Internet Marketers spend half their life reading this stuff. If you are a Plumber, or a Dentist, the likelihood of having your content picked up is very small. Plumbers and Dentists, and normal people don’t spend their life on-line reading every blog written, even when its content is the same as the last 5 they read.

It’s important for an Internet Marketer to be up to date on all the new stuff on the Interweb, if for no other reason, so they can sound really knowledgeable and use uncommon words when they speak to Plumbers and Dentists. I call it selling through a vernacular fear factor. More on that some other time.

Latte_Blog (Photo credit: digitalrob70)

Blogging For Visibility. So how does a small business utilize a blog for better Internet visibility? It’s all about the subject and content.

Blog about a question a customer asked you.

Blog about a unique problem you solved.

Blog about how a person can prepare for your service.

Blog about your kids.

Blog about your employees.

Blog about your favorite customers

All of the above will at a minimum be unique, and unique is the first principle of good content. Any content you write and publish should have these attributes.

We think the new rankings algorithm is based on Supervised Learning and raw statistical analysis that Google uses. The change is probably simple, and frankly very logical. I have two blogs listed at the end of this article you can read for more and better detailed information.

Google Chrome (Photo credit: thms.nl)

Before the panda and penguin updates at Google It was too easy to use on site tactics ( Keywords and H1 Tags and meta titles) to influence rankings.

Google is now moving too, and undoubtedly is using more off site context, and content to determine what your site should rank for. To do that they probably look at all the “citations” (mentions) for your site, in what ever format they appear, and have a raw statistical analysis of the relevancy, and then the context.

The results would be very much in line with what we have seen with the Panda and Penguin updates and algorithm changes. If your site
has been listed in a bunch of directories that have SEO or Rankings in the titles then Google starts with this:

You say your site is about Insurance.

Sites about or related to Insurance that you are listed on or mentioned: 3
Sites not about Insurance or related topics you are listed on: 200

You get credit for the three, and how much credit would depend on the Authority of the page and site you are listed on.

One of the interesting consequences of all this is the no follow or follow link value disappears. As many “citations” may not have a link to your site.

So, in summary:

A Citation or link is only going to help you if it comes from a site or page that Google see’s as relevant to your site.That’s one reason your rankings dropped off the face of the earth if you where primarily using non relevant sites.

Words matter. Google probably (using raw statistical analysis) looks at what a relevant page citation says about your site, or the content about your site on that page. ( Co-citation’s and such)

Follow or not, a high authority site citation with a link or without is still good for your sites Authority, and ranking.

On site signals continue to be important, but they only point Google in a direction to determine your sites Authority theywon’t help your ranking on their own.

Interesting example.

We recently built a 2 page site about a specific remodeling type project. We wanted to test the exact match domain changes. The site
url is (Project Type) in (City).
We added it to 4 or 5 sites that were related directly to Remodeling. We may have tweeted it, and added it to a facebook comment.

Two months later it was ranked number 1 for that very specific keyword, and on the first page for that keyword phrase in different form. It was (and is) ranking higher than several sites that have been around for a long time and had SEO companies working on for years (at least to an extent).

We originally thought the the exact match domain for local sites was still a very important ranking factor and it was that simple. Now, I think if we had back linked the same 2 page site to 4 or 5 unrelated directories… or sites, that it would have never been ranked. Well, only one way to find out. Check back in a few months. We will give you an up date.

All of this is admittedly a very simplistic view of the new Google ranking changes. There are many other important factors. Our point is to communicate that many of the old SEO tactics don’t work any more, and why. For us, it’s all good news, as we have followed the
“act as if Google doesn’t exist” principle in SEO for years (to the extent any Internet marketing company like My One Call LLC can).
Our clients didn’t see any rankings drop over the last 6 months based on these new changes.

We have noticed a clear change in local rankings (not just Google Places but blended and organic rankings) based on Title Tag usage. Because I am in a hurry (Thanksgiving tomorrow and all) let me just say your title tags may have diminished in value, and in fact may be hurting a sites ranking if they are spammy. They need to be looked at in concert with your URL descriptions and page copy. To much is to much. Those with ears will hear.

Now, Rand makes the point that c0-citation is a new and important ranking factor, somewhat like what title tags were. I agree. After looking at over 100 high ranking sites and the terms ( which have been bouncing around in the last 30 days a lot) I am convinced that co-citation is part of the now, and future.

Rand Fishkin gets Employee love… Uh.. Kiss? (Photo credit: Thos003)

So how can you start implementing co-citation in your web promotion. The good news is its a very natural occurrence. In a simple explanation, a co-citation lists a company’s name, and a service next to it. So, My One Call LLC is a Denver SEO, written in text on a decent authority web site can become a co citation. No need for a link, or spammy Anchor text. ( You can see my personal feelings about Anchor Text being a silly SEO tactic in other blogs on this site).

So using a co-citation in your bio’s and descriptions on forums, blogs, and high value directories is a much better tactic than using Anchor text.

Feel free to email me if you see these correlations in any of your rankings info@myonecall.com…. and thanks to the SEOmoz group for doing a superior job.

For those of you who don’t know, SEOmoz develops SEO Software, and provides a robust link intelligence API. I wonder if that is a tri-citation?